There are a few unique battles in the Construct Quarter of the Curse of Naxxramas Hearthstone expansion. Between Patchwerk, Grobbulus, Gluth and Thaddius, you’ll have your hands full. Once you’ve taken them down, you can partake in the Priest and Warrior class challenges. The Priest class challenge is fairly straightforward, with a great deck to battle against Thaddius. The Warrior class challenge is a little more difficult, as you face off against Grobbulus and his Slime-summoning hero power.
You receive a pre-determined deck in the Curse of Naxxramas class challenges. The deck you’ll play with during the Warrior challenge is as follows:
| Card | Mana | Attack/Health | Stats | Quantity |
| Acolyte of Pain | 3 | 1/3 | Whenever this minion takes damage, draw a card. | 2 |
| Amani Berserker | 2 | 2/3 | Enrage: +3 attack. | 2 |
| Armorsmith | 2 | 1/4 | Whenever a friendly minion takes damage, gain one armor. | 2 |
| Battle Rage | 2 | N/A | Draw a card for each damaged friendly minion. | 2 |
| Cleave | 2 | N/A | Deal two damage to two random enemy minions. | 2 |
| Darkscale Healer | 5 | 4/5 | Battlecry: Restore two health to all friendly characters. | 2 |
| Death’s Bite | 4 | 4/2 | Weapon. Deathrattle: Deal one damage to all minions. | 2 |
| Execute | 1 | N/A | Destroy a damaged enemy minion. | 1 |
| Frothing Berserker | 3 | 2/4 | Whenever a minion takes damage, gain +1 attack. | 2 |
| Grommash Hellscream | 8 | 4/9 | Charge. Enrage: +6 attack. | 1 |
| Nerubian Egg | 2 | 0/2 | Deathrattle: Summon a 4/4 Nerubian. | 3 |
| Raging Worgen | 3 | 3/3 | Enrage: Windfury and +1 attack. | 2 |
| Rampage | 2 | N/A | Give a damaged minion +3/3. | 2 |
| Spiteful Smith | 5 | 4/6 | Enrage: Your weapon has +2 attack. | 1 |
| Stoneskin Gargoyle | 3 | 1/4 | At the start of your turn, restore this minion to full health. | 2 |
| Tauren Warrior | 3 | 2/3 | Taunt. Enrage: +3 attack. | 2 |
As you can see, you’re dealing with a large number of minions and cards that work best after taking damage and becoming enraged. In theory, this is a good deck against the hero power of Grobbulus, but it can also work against you. Grobbulus hero power deals one point of damage to every minion currently in play. For each minion that dies from this attack, a 2/2 Slime is summoned to assist Grobbulus.
If the hero power and Slimes weren’t enough, you’re given two Death’s Bite weapons, which also inflict one damage to all minions when it’s used up or gets removed by one of the many Acidic Swamp Ooze minions Grobbulus uses against you. You have plenty of cards that benefit from getting hit by one point of damage, but when you combine the hero power with the potential damage from Death’s Bite, plus the Abomination taunt minions Grobbulus uses (which have a Deathrattle that deals two damage to all characters), the damage adds up quickly and will clear the board if you’re not careful.
In addition to the enrage cards in your deck, you also have a Battle Rage and Rampage that give you card draw and buff damaged minions, respectively. Use Rampage only when you can attack immediately after the buff is in place. It’s far too easy to lose a minion once Grobbulus takes his turn, so don’t buff your damaged minions early.
Your only healing comes from the two Darkscaler Healer minions in your deck. Luckily, the minion heals all friendly characters at once, so make sure you wait until there are at least two or three minions that can be healed before you place a Darkscaler on the battlefield. The same goes for your Armorsmith minions. You can get a huge armor boost from these minions if you use them right before several minions are about to take damage. Likewise, you can get a huge buff for the Frothing Berserker in a similar manner.
Grobbulus has several ways to buff his minions to make them difficult to deal with. If you don’t have cards to play that will withstand a few attacks from the hero power, it’s better to wait and lose board control rather than give Grobbulus several Slimes. Of course, Grobbulus can buff any of his minions, so remove them when you can, but don’t put a minion in play only to have Grobbulus gain a Slime from it the very next turn.
There’s going to be a bit of luck involved in this battle, as Grobbulus can start with a lot of momentum on his side and have a thoroughly buffed minion by turn three or four, while you hope and pray for one of your two taunts or an Execute to defend against it. Unfortunately, there’s no way to account for the luck of the random number generator (RNG) in this battle, so if you don’t have a good opening hand, or Grobbulus gets off to a very solid start, it may be best to start the game over.
Once you defeat Grobbulus you earn two Death’s Bite weapon cards. Warrior doesn’t have a lot of board-clearing abilities, especially if you haven’t been playing long. Death’s Bite can be effective in some decks, but it’s won’t fit in every Warrior deck. Either way, it’s worth having at your disposal should you build a deck that could benefit from its inclusion.
Stay tuned to Prima Games as we continue to cover all five wings of the Curse of Naxxramas expansion!
